Monthly Archives: March 2014

Sometimes when I’m really tired and lying in bed, seconds away drifting off to sleep, I’ll have a sudden twitch that wakes me up again. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but it’s annoying because I was right about to fall asleep and now I’m back at square one. So I had a sleep twitch the other night and it woke me up enough to inspire me to write a Critically Rated article about it. I Googled “sleep twitch” to do some research and found out that it’s a perfectly natural and common occurrence that can be caused by stress, anxiety, exercise, and caffeine, but sometimes they just happen for no reason. The technical name for it is Hypnic Jerk, which I think is awesome. It sounds like an insult or a shitty punk band. Hypnic jerks keep you awake, and you get stressed because you can’t sleep, and stress causes you to have more hypnic jerks. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m pretty sure that’s where the expression “circle jerk” comes from.

You’re at the corner store buying a soda and some chips and maybe a candy bar, and your total comes out to $4.07. You hand the cashier a five-dollar bill, and he hands you back 93 cents. You take your small pile of coins and try to shove it in your pocket but you completely miss. The coins hit the floor and roll in all different directions. You wish that you could just pretend like it didn’t happen and walk out the door, but you can’t abandon those quarters. So you swallow your pride and get down on your hands and knees to pick them up. And you might as well pick up the dimes while you’re at it because those aren’t completely worthless. And you pick up the nickels and pennies because you don’t want to litter. Dropping change you’re trying to put in your pocket makes you feel like less of a person. The truth is you are. But it’s only temporary. Only the cashier and people waiting in line behind you know that you’re a failure. Nobody on the street knows what you did, so you’re in the clear once you exit the store.

It’s currently hiring season at my restaurant, so we’ve been seeing a lot of job hunters coming in and filling out applications. Most people come prepared. They’ll be wearing nice clothes and have their résumé handy. But if they don’t have a pen, they aren’t getting hired. Not bringing a pen while job hunting is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. It means you’re not serious about getting a job. It means you’re not responsible. It means you’re not getting hired. I would say that about 30% of the job seekers who come into my restaurant don’t bring a pen and ask to borrow one. We usually give them a crayon or a marker to fill out the application so it’s obvious that they were unprepared. Occasionally we hand them a pen and let them fill everything while we inform the managers that they didn’t bring a pen. We will let them do the paperwork for fifteen minutes just to waste their time. No pen, no job. It’s as simple as that.

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Stone Brewing Company presents Enjoy By 04.20.14 IPA. It’s a limited release Double IPA and it comes with specific instructions to drink it by April 20th, 2014. They don’t want you to save it or age it. It’s a fresh brew that needs to be consumed as quickly as possible. And trust me, you’ll want to buy a few bottles so you can enjoy it before it disappears forever. This is a great Double IPA. It pours a clear golden color with a small white head. The nose is mostly piney hops, but I get a little citrus and whiffs of sweet malts. The flavor profile is a balance between pine and citrus hops with a malty backbone. It’s kind of sweet, but there is something spicy going on that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s very mellow and smooth to drink, but the 9.4% alcohol content will sneak up on you. This is my kind of beer: a limited batch IPA from a great brewery and lots of subtle references to marijuana subculture. It’s made by Stone, it’s described as being devastatingly dank, and you have to drink it by 4/20. Motherfucking 4/20! If you’re lucky enough to stumble upon it, jump on it.

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I was chilling in the park the other week and noticed an old lady walking her dog. The dog was in a stroller. It was a dog stroller. It was in a stroller for dogs. So she was walking the dog, but the dog wasn’t walking. It’s just sitting there in a stroller like a fucking baby. Dogs are not babies. They are domesticated wolves. They like to walk. They like to run. That’s what’s natural for them. A dog stroller is an abomination. I felt bad for the dog and I felt worse for the lady. She obviously has no family or friends, because anyone who truly cared about her would have talked some sense into her a long time ago. Walking your dog in a stroller is like running to the gym to walk on the treadmill. It makes no fucking sense and is counterproductive. I don’t like dog strollers and I hate the people that stroll them.

Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear Lemonade with Strawberry is a beverage from Arizona. It’s like an Arnold Palmer but with strawberry juice instead of iced tea, so there’s no caffeine. I really like caffeine, but this beverage has a lot of artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup to get your energy levels up. It’s kind of sweet, it’s kind of sour, and I actually like it a lot. It tastes good but there’s no way this shit is healthy for you. I don’t know ho2 they got such a prominent athlete to market diabetes in a can. I would get it again, but I’m not as health-conscious as I should be. Now excuse me while I scarf down this Pixy Stick.

I jumped on the bus yesterday hoping for a quick and quiet ride, but instead there was some jagoff blasting shitty rap music from his shitty boom box. Well, it wasn’t a shitty boom box because the music was loud as fuck and the bass was powerful enough to rattle the windows. All the other passengers on the bus were getting annoyed, one guy was pissed enough to tell the jagoff to turn off his music. The jagoff responded by turning his music up even louder. That didn’t sit well with the other passengers and people started yelling at him to turn it off. Things were escalating pretty quickly and it looked like things might start turning violent. Then the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road (not even at a bus stop), stopped the engine, and walked down the aisle towards the jagoff. The driver was a big intimidating black guy, and he put his finger right in the jagoff’s face and said, “Nobody wants to hear your shitty music. Turn it off now or get the fuck off my bus.” The jagoff instantly switched off his boom box and kept his head down in shame and embarrassment. He got off the bus two stops later. He knew that he was defeated. I can only assume that he jumped on the next bus so he could piss off another bunch of passengers. Blasting music on the bus is a great way to make enemies. You’ll never make a new friend by being an asshole. Unless they have the same taste in shitty music.

I went to the Laundromat yesterday to wash my clothes. As soon as I walked in, I knew something was wrong. It was totally empty. There was not a single person in there, there was not a single machine running, there wasn’t even any clothes in a dryer waiting to get picked up. It was completely deserted. It was creepy. I mean it was five minutes to noon on a Thursday, you would expect there to be at least one bored housewife washing clothes just to get out of the house. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, like I was trespassing or something. But it was laundry day and that’s what I was there to do, so I chose a washing machine and plunked in a few quarters and left to run some errands. I came back half an hour later and the Laundromat was still empty, but there was another machine running so I was slightly comforted. I hope you never experience the eeriness of a deserted Laundromat.

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March 27th of each year is apparently National Joe Day, a holiday to celebrate all the Joes in your life. I know two Joes and three Joeys. I’m not sure if Joey counts, but I’ll still wish a Joey a happy National Joe Day just to be safe. Some people will say that National Joe Day is not a real holiday and that it’s a waste of time to go around honoring Joes. Those people are probably not named Joe. They are just jealous of Joes. I’m not jealous of Joes. I respect Joes. I even respect Joeys. I can’t respect Josephine though. She gets around.

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Stone Brewing Co. is responsible for the Stochasticity Project, a new experiment in craft brewing. Grapefruit Slam IPA is the first beer, and considering I’ve bought three 22-ounce bottles in the past week, I would say the experiment was a rousing success. Grapefruit Slam IPA is an American Double/Imperial IPA with grapefruit peel added. The grapefruit peel is quite apparent, both in the aroma and in the flavor of the beer. The nose has citrus and pine hops, with a little caramel and toasted malt to balance it out. I can taste a lot of citrus hops with some pine and resin, and there’s also a malty backbone but it’s mostly hoppy. It has a satisfying 8.2% ABV. The label art will grab your attention. It has blue grid background that seems like something out of The Matrix with bold white lettering. It’s always exciting trying a new beer. And Grapefruit Slam IPA has only been around since mid-February of this year, so it really is a new beer. Buy it and try it.

You’re ten years old and you’re goofing off in math class like always. Your teacher asks you to be quiet and sit down. You do for a minute, but then you forget what she said and you start talking again. Then your teacher tells you to shut up and keep your butt in the chair. You do for a minute, but then you throw a wad of paper at Jimmy. She sees you do it and she yells, warning you not to pull any more shenanigans or else she’ll send you to the principal’s office. But the word shenanigans gets you all excited and you try to get away with shooting Jimmy with a spitball, but you miss and hit Stacy. Stacy tells on you instantly and then your teacher screams at you to go to the principal’s office. That’s when you know that you’re in trouble. The trek to the principal’s office is the longest walk of your life. You feel like you’re walking towards the electric chair. Escape is impossible. You’re going to have to explain to him why you were disruptive and interrupting class. You could be suspended, or even worse, expelled. He might even call your mom. I used to get sent to the principal’s office fairly often. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I was a troublemaker. Who am I kidding? I’m still a troublemaker, only now there’s no principal to reprimand me anymore. Instead I only have to worry about the cops if I do something bad. At least they won’t call my mom.

Apex Special IPA in an Imperial India Pale Ale from Bear Republic Brewing Co. It’s not available year round so you should snag a bottle or a 6-pack if you come across it. It has a nice orangey gold color with a thick whitish head. The aroma has a lot of hops, as you would expect from a good IPA. I get a lot of citrus like orange, grapefruit, maybe even tangerine, but there’s also a little pine and resin too. It’s balanced with toasted and sugary malts. The taste is more balanced than the aroma would have you believe. Yeah, you get a lot of citrus and pine hops, but the toasted malt has a bigger presence than I thought it would. I also taste orange, grapefruit, melon… it’s definitely fruity, but there’s also pine, resin, and spice. It’s delicious. I could drink it all day. But it’s 8.95% alcohol so I probably shouldn’t. This is a very good IPA. I’m happy it’s in my belly.

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Sublime is one of favorite bands from the ‘90s. They had a ska punk/reggae sound fused with rock and rap. Sublime was Bradley Nowell on vocals and guitar, Bud Gaugh on drums, and Eric Wilson on bass. Brad’s Dalmatian, Lou Dog, was an honorary member and the mascot. They only released a couple of albums before breaking up. It’s hard to stay together as a band when your lead singer and most talented member dies (just ask Nirvana about that). Bradley Nowell was the frontman for Sublime, but he had a little bit of a heroin problem. He started doing drugs as an experiment to see if it would help him with his music. It helped him write some classic songs that are still popular today, like “Smoke Two Joints”, “Date Rape”, “What I Got”, “Santeria”, “Doin’ Time”, “Wrong Way”, and “Bad Fish”. A lot of Brad’s lyrics are about drugs, booze, partying, and Lou Dog. Brad Nowell died on May 25, 1996. Lou Dog died on September 17, 2001. And that’s the real day the music died. There have been a couple of lineups associated with Sublime, but it’s not Sublime without Brad or Lou Dog.

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Racer 5 India Pale Ale is an IPA from Healdsburg, California’s Bear Republic Brewing Co. It’s one of their flagship brews along with Red Rocket Ale. It pours a golden orange color with a small white head. It has a nice hoppy aroma with traces of citrus, cedar, pine, and sweet malts. It tastes like you would expect. I get lots of citrus hops, grapefruit, orange, orange peel, some pine hops, and it’s balanced with toasty malt. It’s not as bitter as I thought it would be. The 7.5% alcohol content isn’t as high as I’d like it to be, but this is a solid IPA and worth trying. Me likey.

So it’s your birthday and it looks like someone bought you a cake. It says “Happy Birthday,” it has your name on it, and it has more candles than you would like to see on it. You think of a wish, you blow out all the candles, then you pluck out the candles and lick the frosting off of them, and then it’s time to cut the cake. Cutting the cake is the least fun part of the cake experience. It’s actually work. You have to cut a slice, plop it on a plate, and hand it to somebody. Then you cut another slice, plop it on a plate, and hand it to somebody else. Then you cut another piece, plop it on a plate, and hand it to another person, but that person doesn’t want too much frosting so you have to cut another piece with less frosting and you serve them that. And then somebody else wants a corner slice. And somebody else only wants half a slice. And somebody else wants a slice with blue frosting. You’re over it after cutting five or six slices. Everybody’s too demanding and nobody is satisfied. Let them cut their own fucking piece. It’s your birthday; you shouldn’t have to do anything.

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Everyone has at least on shirt in their wardrobe that looks great and fits great but it has an annoying tag. The tag will either pop out of your shirt or constantly be rubbing against the back of your neck until your neck is chafed and irritated. An annoying tag can ruin the whole shirt. The only way to deal with an annoying tag is to cut it off. But that won’t solve the problem because the universe wants you to be uncomfortable and another shirt will develop a problematic tag to annoy you. You can’t win. Don’t try. You just have to be miserable.

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I got on the bus the other night, found an empty seat, and sat down. It only took me a few moments to realize that something was wrong. For starters, the ground around my seat was covered with newspapers. It wasn’t just a newspaper that some asshole left on the bus that happened to fall off the seat. The papers were all jumbled and spread out, they covered the entire floor. And I noticed some chunky liquid seeping up through the papers… somebody threw up and used newspaper to cover it up. I got up and found another seat, one that was puke-free. And then I saw a lady sit down in the puke seat. I should have said something to her, I could have warned her, but something told me that she deserved to sit there. Something about her demeanor lead me to believe that it was karma. She didn’t seem like a very enjoyable person. So I let her sit with her feet in a pile of puke for the duration of the ride. I got to my stop, walked by her towards the exit, told her about the vomit, and jumped off the bus while she hurriedly moved to another seat. People throw up on public transportation all the time, and hiding puke with newspapers seems like the easiest way to deal with the problem. Just cover it up and pretend like nothing happened.